12 Years A Slave And Nebraska Pull In Big Independent Spirit Award Nominations

Steve McQueen’s harrowing 12 Years a Slave and Alexander Payne’s Nebraska have both become the early frontrunners for the 29th Annual Independent Spirit Awards, as the nominations were announced this morning, Both movies landed nods in key categories, like Best Feature and Best Director, and padding their stats with candidates for Best Male Lead (for Chiwetel Ejiofor and Bruce Dern, respectively), as well as Best Supporting Female and Best Supporting Male.

Presented by Film Independent, the Spirit Awards typically honor the smaller-budget artistic endeavors that harbor Academy Award hopes but - depending on who you talk to - don’t possess the proper budget to realistically campaign for the Oscars. To that end, the complete list of this year’s Spirit Awards nominees include films that hope to compete in Hollywood's biggest race – movies like 12 Years, Nebraska and All Is Lost -- but also features that might be left on the outside looking in come Oscar-nomination morning. Other nominees in the Best Feature category, such as Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, likely will NOT find their way into the Academy Award's Best Picture race. Having an Indie Spirit Award nomination can help a healthy Oscar campaign, but few movies start here and build.

Still, the Indie Spirit Awards succeed in shining a light on below-the-radar movies that deserve our attention, including titles like Fruitvale StationBlue Caprice and Una Noche, which landed in the Best First Feature category. Of course, the immediate reaction was to which films were "snubbed," in a sense.

Overall it’s an admirable list of deserving films. Patton Oswalt has been tapped to host the show, which will air on March 1st. Click here for the complete list of nominees. Here are the nominees in the top categories.

Best Feature12 Years a SlaveAll Is LostFrancis HaInside Llewyn DavisNebraska